Payday Loan Industry Divides and Conquers at Capitol
Last year, payday and auto-title lenders stuck Texans with more than $1.25 billion in fees on loans carrying interest rates that frequently top 500 percent. Churches, charities, consumer advocates and...
View ArticleGOP Senator Accuses Colleagues of Being ‘Shills’ for Payday Lenders
An ugly scene erupted in the Texas Senate today, with Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) suggesting that some of his Republican colleagues were “shills” for the payday loan industry and worrying that the GOP...
View ArticleTexas Senate Passes Surprisingly Tough Payday Loan Reform
After a dramatic false start on Thursday, the big payday loan reform bill—tediously-negotiated by Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas)—easily cleared the Senate. But not before senators agreed to changes that...
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Van de Putte Treated to Compliments, Awkward Jokes as Senate’s New President...
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio On its first day back in session, the Texas Senate named state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) its President pro tempore for the session. The...
View ArticlePayday Lenders Buy Themselves a Weakened ‘Reform’ Bill
Earlier this legislative session, a chief of staff for a senator noted that the $4 billion Texas payday and auto-title loan industry would soon grow powerful and lucrative enough that the Texas...
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Texas Senate Tilts Rightward, 2014 Edition
In 2012, before last year’s general election, the Observer published a roundup of important state Senate races. The headline: “The Texas Senate Heads Toward the Right.” As the state heads toward this...
View ArticleThe Mystery of the Trial Lawyer-Funded Group Backing Tea Party Candidates
As political action committees go, Balance PAC is a strange animal. In 2012, the group, which is funded primarily by Democratic trial lawyers, supported minor Democratic judicial candidates and...
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‘Outsider’ Don Huffines Puts Out His Hat for Lobby Money
It’s a trope as old as democratic politics: the fresh-faced outsider wins an election against the old order, and eventually becomes just as bad as the one they replaced. I’ve never been aware of a case...
View ArticleThis Week in Upside-Down World: Payday Lenders Upset about ‘Special Interests’
At the current rate, there may be a day in the not-so-distant future when every Austin lawmaker and staffer goes to work for the payday loan industry, leaving no one, at last, to pretend to care about...
View ArticleTexas Senate Loses Yet Another Moderate
The Texas Tribune’s Reeve Hamilton broke word this morning that state Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) is stepping down to become the next chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. A special...
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